Giant Sequoia

A couple of months ago, we went with friends Monika and Derrick to Calaveras Big Trees State Park. The park lies about eighty miles east-northeast of Stockton in the Sierra Nevadas. The area has served as a tourist attraction for a surprisingly long time (although native peoples like the Miwok have, of course, known about the giant trees for a very long time). A white hunter named Augustus Dowd happened upon what is now known as the Discovery Tree in the spring of 1852, and people soon started looking for ways to make money from the behemoths. Some early schemes involved taking the trees to the people; the tree Dowd first saw was cut down and sections of its trunk and bark were shipped to New York (by way of San Francisco and Cape Horn) and put on display. Another tree was left standing but stripped completely of its bark. But once the Mammoth Grove Hotel was built nearby in 1861, the public began to travel to see the giants in their natural state.

Roots of a Fallen Tree

There are two types of huge trees in California: the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), which is the sort found in Redwood National Park and Muir Woods, and the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), which is found in the western Sierras. Redwoods are the tallest living trees, with the current record holder at 379 feet tall. But giant sequoias are the largest, with diameters up to 32 feet or more. Redwoods live up to 1,800 years or so, but the oldest living giant sequoias are more than 3,000 years old. When these elders of the forest first sprouted, the iron age was just getting under way in Eurasia, King Tut was relatively fresh in his grave, and the Olmec culture was flourishing in Mesoamerica.

Fallen Trunk

“Big Trees” is a truly apt name for the park, and not just because it accurately describes the place’s draw. The name’s succinct simplicity is a reflection of the effect the giant sequoias have on the visitor. For the first few trees spotted, my mind was awash with florid language: colossal, gargantuan, Brobdingnagian; majestic, regal, magnificent; ancient, venerable, primordial. But, my mind seemed to regard these initial sightings as flukes. The more trees I encountered, the less I was able to comprehend the combination of sheer size and sheer numbers — to accept that this wasn’t just a few genetic freaks, but an entire population of giants. Pretty soon, my internal monologue was reduced to a troglodytic “Big. Trees.”

Pioneer Cabin Tree

The park contains two clusters of giant sequoias. The North Grove is the more often visited group, and contains the trees that first drew tourists to the area. This section of the park is right off Highway 4 and has short, wide, and level trail that makes many trees very accessible. When we were there, it was packed — a parking lot full of cars and the almost constant presence of others along the path. The North Grove contains a hundred or so large trees, many with names like the Pioneer Cabin Tree, the Abraham Lincoln tree, the Father of the Forest, and the Siamese Twins. But the main concentration of trees — and the real draw of the park, as far as I’m concerned — lies an eight-mile drive away (three as the crow flies) in the South Grove.

A Quartet

The South Grove’s four-mile loop trail is pretty well developed, but is a far cry from the wheelchair-accessible North Grove path. This, along with its distance from the highway, keeps the South Grove much less busy. We only met a few people on the trail, and mostly were alone with the birds, small woodland mammals, and the trees. The South Grove has about a thousand large giant sequoias, and contains the park’s largest specimens. The experience of walking amongst the trees isn’t quite one of having been shrunk to the size of an ant. In a way it is more jarring, because the arboreal titans are interspersed with other species of “normal” trees and, of course, smaller immature sequoias.

Next to a Sequoia

We ended up spending quite a bit of time at the South Grove. Without the crush of crowds like at the North Grove, we were inclined to spend more time investigating and simply contemplating individual trees. We sat for awhile at the Agassiz Tree, which at almost 250 feet tall and 22 feet in diameter is the largest in the park. In addition to the hikes at the two groves, we stopped for a nice picnic lunch on the banks of the Stanislaus River. The trip as a whole was quite fun, and I look forward to seeing big trees elsewhere — especially the Coast Redwoods. I took quite a few pictures, mainly of the trees but also some of wildlife we happened upon. Click any of the photos above to see the whole gallery.

Tiger Through the Trees

Last Saturday morning, Veronica and I headed to Madison’s free Vilas Zoo. We met our friends Yi Hong and Steve there shortly after opening time, hoping to beat the crowds. Little did we know that the Green and Gold Training Camp was going on that morning, and hundreds of little Packers fans and their parents had descended on the zoo. Luckily, the crowd mostly stayed occupied with things other than looking at the animals.

Iguana

Although we’d been to the zoo a couple of times before, we’d missed out on a few animals and areas. This was the first time we saw the tiger in its enclosure; previously, there had just been signs up saying “Exhibit Closed.” We also ventured into the herpetarium, in which you can get pretty close to some of the snakes and reptiles (see left). A new Children’s Zoo with a playground and carousel opened a year or so ago, but we hadn’t realized that the area actually houses more animals — a red pandas, a pair of meerkats, some white cockatoos and a huge African porcupine.

Click the photos above for larger versions, or check out the whole gallery here.

Swimming Bear

A little over a month ago, Veronica participated in the Zoo Run, a charity 5K/10K run/walk benefiting Madison’s Henry Vilas Zoo. I tagged along to provide moral support and to hang out at the zoo while she ran. We arrived at the zoo fairly early, so we had some time to walk around and look at the animals. Most of them were just waking up themselves, and weren’t very active. A notable exception to this was one of the polar bears. He (I’m making an assumption based on size) was passing time by swimming laps in a small pool within his enclosure. A small waterfall pours into the pool, and he seemed to like swimming under that on his back. Upon reaching the other end, he’d swim back underwater and repeat the process. Only once did we see him get out, and the only briefly. He shook off some water, walked around a bit, then did a belly slide back into the pool for some more laps. I’d like to think that the bear looked happy as he was gliding through the water, but I can’t imagine that such obsessive behavior is a sign of good mental health.

Standing Flamingos

I watched the beginning of the race, then went back to wander the zoo. By this time, the animals were becoming a little more active. I walked by the polar bears again, and the big one was still swimming. I also stopped by the giraffes, penguins, flamingos, and a few others. The lions were asleep in a secluded part of their enclosure, and none of the other big cats were on display. I didn’t have a whole lot of time, so I didn’t venture into the aviary, the reptile house, or any of the other enclosed exhibits.

Running Librarian

I thought that I’d timed my meanderings so that I’d arrive at the finish line a few minutes before Veronica (the race route formed a loop, so I had far less distance to travel than did she). But, she beat her goal time by so much that I missed her! I managed to snap a few pictures close to the start of the race, but unfortunately none at the end. After the race, we went home for some from-scratch blueberry pancakes, which she’d certainly earned (and which I certainly hadn’t). Click any of the pictures above to see the whole gallery.

About a week ago, Veronica and I returned from visiting my mom in Carson City, Nevada. We were there for about a week, and did a whole bunch of fun stuff, like swimming in and boating on Lake Tahoe, seeing a bizarre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, visiting the Nevada Art Museum, getting a guided tour of an area with lots of petroglyphs, and attending the Carson City Jazz Festival. I took a bunch of pictures, and will be posting them in chunks over the next week or so.

Praying Mantis

The first set of pictures is from Washoe Lake, which lies just north of Carson City. Much of the shore of the lake is part of a state park, which includes a couple of wildlife observation platforms. Walking around the southern shore of the lake, we saw quail, ducks, butterflies, and a lone great blue heron. I almost stepped on a large praying mantis, who I was certainly not expecting to find on the gravel path on which we were walking. (S)he was a very cooperative model, letting me take lots of pictures, and at times even seemingly mugging for the camera.

Red-Tailed Hawk

At Little Washoe Lake, just north of its larger namesake, we spotted a cluster of pelicans floating, with one soaring overhead. Unfortunately, they were too far away for any decent photos. While driving between the lakes, however, we came upon a red-tailed hawk perching on a bale of hay. I managed to snap a couple of pictures from the car before he flew off to join a friend atop a nearby telephone pole.

Click any of the above photos to see the whole gallery.